


These Healing Hands

by WrithingBeneathYou



Series: The Salt Mine [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character grief due to suspected character death, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, brief description of a graphic wound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 04:50:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19143913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrithingBeneathYou/pseuds/WrithingBeneathYou
Summary: No man should know what it feels like to hold the pieces of his most precious person together.





	These Healing Hands

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prompt fill for the [2019 Naruto Rare Pair Bingo](https://naruto-rarepair-bingo.tumblr.com/) event taking place over on Tumblr. 
> 
> Board A, "H/C."

Deep forest darkness fills the area with chakra so oppressive it thickens the air. Hashirama clings to Tobirama’s limp body and gathers him close. Blood is everywhere. It crusts at the tips of his hair and glues the green folds of his haori to skin.

No man should know what it feels like to hold the pieces of his most precious person together. The warmth of Tobirama’s displaced organs against his bare palm is enough to make the world turn sideways. He won’t. He can’t. This isn’t happening.

Hashirama screams, howling so loud the dirt around him lifts. Trees uproot and fall without discretion for where they crash, be it on friend or foe, none of it matters. All that matters is the fact that his world is ending. The brother of his blood and the keeper of his heart lies languid against his chest, bloody and broken in ways he can’t fully acknowledge.

Between rabbit-quick heartbeats, mokuton rips through the earth and spears into flesh. He can’t hear the bodies collapsing wetly over the sound of his own anguish. Stuttering pulses of chakra fade out, but bring no solace. He doesn’t care about retribution. He only wants his brother back.

A life for a life if that’s what it takes.

Hashirama’s name floats through the din of his own desperate sobs like a memory. In his periphery, a wash of indigo sweeps into the clearing and rakes through the earth with its exposed phalanges. The susanoo digs in deep to withstand the buffeting wind rolling off of Hashirama, almost buckles under the violence.

Tobirama used to be fascinated by the inner workings of it—would spend hours scaling the spinous processes while Madara bemusedly sat seiza in the middle and let him go about his studies.

Now there will be no one to map the path of tendons and nerves.

No one to frown at Hashirama over his chopsticks when he spaces out from information overload.

No one to brush his hair and mouth his neck while embedding the names of individual bones in each kiss.

No one.

Suddenly, he registers the shinigami’s outstretched arms coming to collect.

“No!” The denial is torn from his throat in a brutal scream, more animal than human. No one has earned the right to touch his otouto. Tobirama is his to love, his to mourn. His _alone_.

There are hands clasping his face between them, strong as folded iron and just as red hot. Hashirama blinks past the tears and blearily focuses on the flash of spinning tomoe before him. There’s a wild stream of black hair whipping out behind pale skin and, for a brief second, he sees a friend.

Madara’s mouth works furiously around words that Hashirama can’t hear.

They’re insignificant. Whatever he’s saying can wait for a time Hashirama’s heart isn’t being torn from his chest.

“He’s gone,” he silently replies into the gale. “Tobi’s gone.”

It’s a doleful pronouncement and the world bends under its weight. Reality itself begins to warp around him—the powers of the Sage are useless if they can’t keep Tobirama healthy and hale.

Through it all, Madara’s hands never leave him. They fist into his haori and rock him back and forth viciously, sending warm crests of blood slopping into his lap. When all Hashirama does is flow smoothly with the motion, Madara gets right in his face—climbs half onto his lap—and takes Hashirama’s hand in his.

Without his palm holding the grotesque wound in Tobirama’s stomach together, things begin to spill out where they shouldn’t. Hashirama gnashes his teeth and keens until his lungs give out.

Tobirama’s body shifts as Madara battles to keep his seat under the assault of another blast of wind.

“You’re…time…fucking…need…” he screams directly in Hashirama’s ear. Only a few words register, but it’s enough to give him pause, to put slack in his clawed fingers.

In a flash, Madara forces Hashirama’s fingers into animal signs and matches each one in kind. His Sharingan blazes brightly, the only point of stability in the tatters of a rejected reality.

“Hashirama! You need to…with…now!”

A familiar chakra bleeds into Hashirama’s coils. It bullies its way past his numb fingers and jumpstarts the underlying current. Heeding the call, verdant energies latch onto the liquid smoke of Madara’s signature and give chase as it retreats.

Blooms of green and gold sprout behind his eyes, blinding.

Grounding.

Hashirama begins to feel the ache of sorrow in his bones and the tangible weight of two full grown men across his legs. The whipping fury around them slowly dies down to a light zephyr.

“Get yourself under control and focus, you idiot tree. I’m no good at this,” Madara roars, sounding more distressed than Hashirama has ever heard him. He glances down at the stuttering green light emanating from their interlaced fingers. Shock flips his stomach and makes his gut churn.

Tobirama chest is rising and falling so slightly it’s barely visible. But, it’s there. There’s still a chance.

In his sorrow he hadn’t realized.

Oh, Sage.

Sobering quickly, Hashirama blinks away his tears and lays his brother’s body out flat on the ground.

“Thank you my friend,” he rasps, gently reclaiming his hand and easing Madara away. In an instant the massive reserves of his chakra pour forth in a wave of Iryō Ninjutsu so powerful it thrums.

Madara collapses back and hangs his head between his knees. His gloves creak under the force with which he fists them in his wild hair.  “It’ll be fine,” he says, voice thick with unshed emotion. “Everything is going to be just fine.”

Hashirama nods silently, but otherwise continues at his task. Fascia squelches as it reattaches, pulling organs back into their proper place. A long loop of intestine snakes across Hashirama’s thigh and spools itself into its stomach cavity like a winding bobbin. The gore that already spilled on his clothes stays brown and tacky, but color begins to fill Tobirama’s cheeks again regardless.

An indeterminate amount of time passes.

Finally Hashirama cuts the flow of chakra between them and rests his bloodied hands on a tight, flawless stomach.

Madara laughs wetly upon seeing even old scars healed. “You fucking asshole,” he whispers, though it lacks teeth. Which one of them he’s cursing is a mystery—Tobirama for nearly dying, or Hashirama for being so swept up in his grief that _Tobirama nearly died_.

“You stupid, moronic, blind, self-sacrificing, Senju asshole,” he manages to choke out before shuffling close and pulling Hashirama’s forehead to rest against his own.   

Hashirama grasps the back of his neck and clings to his irascible anchor in all things. “He’s okay,” he says, because they both need to hear it.

Again, there’s a humorless laugh, this time accompanied by a salty pair of lips pressed to the corner of his mouth. “ I should murder him for this,” Madara says, turning to take the kiss in full.

It’s a chaste, broken thing, but born of love.

“Please don’t undo all of my hard work,” Hashirama teases, though the attempt at levity falls flat.

For a time, they stay hunched over Tobirama’s sleeping form, leaning on each other for support as the barren forest around them slowly refills with birdsong. The bodies of enemy shinobi will be left to the foxes and the ravens. The pools of their blood will nurture the tree roots. Tobirama will still be around to bully his Anija, ignite Madara’s temper, and fall into bed with them both at the end of it all.

The story of today’s skirmish may not be an entirely happy one, but Hashirama is content with the conclusion.

“We should get Tobi home,” he says. Sniffling softly, he pulls back to meet Madara’s dark eyes.

He nods once and removes a glove to stroke the dirt from Tobirama’s cheek. When that single touch isn’t enough, he bends down to kiss his forehead, then the tip of his nose, and lingers on his lips. He has always been a tactile man and the strong thrum of a heartbeat beneath his palm brings forth the tears that he had been fighting all this time.

Hashirama watches him softly. “Madara?”

“Yes. Yes, let’s get him home,” he replies, voice so husky it sounds like someone else.   

Gently—so very gently—Hashirama hooks an arm beneath his brother’s legs and shoulders, gathering him close. He slowly stands, grateful for the silent support of Madara’s hand beneath his elbow. That comforting weight vanishes only long enough for Madara to collect his bloody gunbai. Then, he returns to Hashirama’s side and wraps an arm around his waist—grasping his obi like a life-line.

It’s not a comfortable way to travel, but neither of them move to pull away.  

They set off at a sedate pace back to the village. There’s no rush, after all. Time is no longer their enemy.

Just prior to nightfall, Tobirama stirs and blinks away the haze of waking. He silently takes in the haggard appearance of his partners and reads the remnants of anguish in their posture. There is a story there that does not require retelling. He knows well the feel of being the recipient of Iryō Ninjutsu.

Madara is the first to notice his alertness.

“Tobirama,” he breathes, face slack with far too much raw emotion for Tobirama’s liking.

Hashirama stumbles to a stop and his smile shines down like a sunbeam piercing through gray clouds.

“Otouto!”

The glassy-eyed awe is too much to handle; their obvious love of him burns too bright. Tobirama can’t handle being the singular focus of this much attention. He frowns and narrows his eyes at the ground instead.

“Anija, I can walk on my own. Put me down,” he snaps at his brother, the man who in all their years has never refused him anything.

It comes as a surprise then to have Hashirama and Madara’s voices rise up powerfully in unison:

“No.”


End file.
